Friday, January 30, 2015

The Senate Armed Services Committee was preparing to hear testimony from three super-annuated former Secretaries of State when the proceeding was rudely disrupted by Code Pink. The self proclaimed "peace and social justice" NGO dedicated to protest all US wars through obnoxious grandstanding sought to make a citizens arrest of 91 year old Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was President Richard Nixon's (and later President Gerald Ford's) National Security Adviser and Secretary of State .

It does not seem like the Capitol Police were prepared for the street theater in Senate hearing rooms, as the pink protesters were at first escorted to the back of the room. When they continued to agitate, Chairman John McCain decried their lack of decorum and bid a rude adieu to the ideologically addled agitators. The Chairman's ire might have been aided by his memory of spending five and a half years as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War.

What was truly outstanding was former Reagan Secretary of State George Schultz's response to the ruckus. The 94 year old diplomat stood up to confront Code Pink and then declared: “I salute Henry Kissinger for his many
contributions to peace and security.” This led to a standing ovation which drown out the progressive protesters.

It was curious that Code Pink wanted to refight the Vietnam war nearly 40 years after the fall of Saigon. If they wanted to confront a Secretary of State present with a more recent war record, they could have gone after Clinton's second Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who was at the helm at Foggy Bottom during the NATO bombings in Serbia during the Spring of 1999.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) has been making the media rounds purportedly to publicize his new book "Gods, Guns, Grits and Gravy" (2015). However, the PR campaign is laying a predicate for an all but announced run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

During an appearance on "Meet the Press", Gov. Huckabee exclaimed: “You don't punish a child for something his parents did," regarding the children of illegal immigrants (a.k.a. DREAM Act kids).

But when Gov. Huckabee addressed a crowd of Christian conservatives in Richmond, Virginia, he Gov. Huckabee tried to temper these sympathetic sentiments towards DREAMers with some red meat for borders, language and culture.

Immigration is going to be a flash point in the Republican race for President. There are establishment proto candidates like former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) who embrace liberal immigration and former Governor Mitt Romney who has evolved and advocated that the GOP should swallow hard and succumb to the inevitable by passing comprehensive immigration reform. On the other end of the spectrum, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) would neither cotton to an open borders immigration amnesty nor a DREAM Act which penalizes legal immigrants who played by the rules.

It sounds like Governor Huckabee is trying to split the baby by allowing for illegal immigration accommodations yet advocating an aspirational secure the borders and invigilate immigrants. That sounds like DREAMing in more ways than one.

Punctuating his immigration opinions before the Family Foundation, Governor Huckabee proclaimed: “If that bothers you to the point that
you’d say, ‘I’d never vote for you,’ then you’re never going to vote for
me, because that’s something on which I will not recant. Gov. Huckabee's unequivocal utterance may be prophetic, considering the anti-immigration ardor in Iowa today.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) traveled to London England to address the Henry Jackson Society. This British think tank, named after the anticommunist defense hawk Sen. "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA), is dedicated to support a strong military and a "forward strategy" (involving diplomacy, culture, economics and politics) to make the world safe for modern liberal democracies.

Jindal's speech before Scoop Jackson academics had the potential for promoting his political standing amongst aficionados of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, while contrasting world views with his prospective general election rival Hillary Clinton. However, Jindal chose to focus his remarks on the dangers of political Islamism both in global hot zones as well as within Western democracies.
Jindal alluded to no go zones in Europe.

After the speech, Jindal was pressed by a CNN reporter to name a No Go zone in London, the presumed Republican presidential hopeful refused to give specifics

.

So instead of concentrating on the substance of the speech, a politically correct media inclined to destroy any rivals to the second coming of the Clintons to the Oval Office, played a media game of Gotcha'.
While progressive partisans may think that they have already won in taking down Jindal with no go zones, just like Gov. Chris Christie's prospects were impaired by the ersatz "Bridge-gate" scandal, they are too clever by half.

Jindal sought to properly define "Smart Power" to pursue American political and economic security. But since the two term Louisiana Governor is considered in the hunt for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, the Lamestream Media will use political language to shape the race as they will.

Post Scriptus 01/21/2015 At Red State, Eric Erickson pointed to an earlier video from CNN which reported on Muslim patrols which sought to enforce ad hoc sharia law on the streets of East London.

However, in the run up to the NFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers, Socialist Alternative Councilwoman Kshama Sawant railed against the restrictiveness nature of Seattle Seahawk season tickets preventing many unprivileged WeHawk fans from seeing the game in person.

Sawant organized some street theater to illustrate the divide between the Seahawk fans have and have nots with a "13th Man Initiative". The socialist rally on Capitol Hill gathered hundreds of blue and lime clad workers chanting "No justice, no beast". During their march to Pioneer Square, protesters carried signs reading "We are the 13" and "12th Man, aka Bequeathed Mode".

“With 3 million people in the Seattle metro area, that’s about 44 people
per seat. After this weekend, the Hawks will have
played 10 home games, or 41 quarters (remember the overtime versus the
Broncos). If you subtract infants and Sounders fans, that comes out
almost perfectly to one quarter per person."

Some claim that this 13th man initiative is just satire. Where you stand is where you sit. Street theater might be a lark for an Occupy rally. As an elected official, such satire is unseemly, especially without denoting that it was allegedly illustrating a point. If so, what was the point?

It is a pity that rabble rousers and progressive political animals continue to use sports as a platform for forcing their politics into sports rather than allowing the teams to build unity among the community. Alas the 13th man initiative is the odd men as the are people who can not root for their team without playing victim (for not having tickets), "raising consciences" and politically dividing the Seahawks fan base.

It seems that Sharpton has been bitten by the show business bug and can't stop trying to steal the lime-lights, even for the Academy Awards ceremony.

Normally, when self appointed racial justice leaders protest, they settle the problem by enriching themselves without "solving" the problem. There is still time to implement a simple solution. Now Al Sharpton could host the Academy Awards, with a special guest appearance by North Korean Dictator Kim Jon Un.

The challenge would be having Al Sharpton read the teleprompter and to stop talking with the orchestral cues so the Oscars are not as long as an old time Fidel Castro speech.

Five days after the horrific massacre in Paris at the offices of Charlie Hebdo by radical Islamist terrorists, the Simpsons showed a short tribute to support free speech.

Maggie Simpsons flag waving was a homage to the iconic painting Liberty Leading the People (1830) by Eugene Delacroix along with the social media meme #JeSuisCharlie (I am Charlie). Or perhaps the pose was inspired by Cosette in Les Miserables.

Even after 26 seasons on American television with nearly 550 episodes, the Simpsons shows that it has the pulse on what animates the public.

This is not the first time in which the Simpsons has sought to make serious points with ancillary scenes. In 2010, the Simpsons kept it real for their twentieth anniversary season with a title card sequence inspired by the graffiti artist Banksy.

The typical close to the Title Sequence of the Family watching the boob tube revealed itself to be a plasma television image in a grim Asian sweat shop churning out images of the Simpsons. As the camera focused on the toxic slim dripping below, it shows lower levels of commercial exploitation. The surreal sweat shop infused humor in its dark comedy, as a pooped panda hauled a cart of plush dolls, which were stuffed of ground kittens. A decapitated dolphin sealed boxes of this Simpsons merchandise.

The picture of the Simpsons watching the boob tube reveals itself to be a plasma television image in a grim Asian sweat shop that is laboriously drawing images of the Simpsons. As the POV focuses on the toxic slime dripping below, there are subterranean layers of exploitation. Busy sweatshop seamstresses sew Simpsons licensed garments, worker stuff Bart plush figurines and a DVD duplication production line.

The Simpson's standing in solidarity with the Paris Shooting protesters demonstrated that they are animated ambassadors of free speech. While the Les Miserables motif was apropos, an even more poignant pairing would have been to mash up the Simpsons with operatic Les Mis anthem "One Day More".

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Duke University announced that the Muslim Call to Prayer would be broadcast every Friday at 1PM. This was being done to promote religious pluralism for the 700 Muslim students on campus. Imam Adel Zeeb, the Muslim chaplain at Duke explained: "The adhan is the call to prayer that brings Muslims back to their purpose in life, which is to worship God and serves as a reminder to serve our brothers and sisters in humanity."

Off-campus, however, reaction to this news was swift and condemnatory. The Reverend Franklin Graham took to social media to express disapproval of Duke's decision. Although Muslim students had been meeting in the basement of the Chapel for years, Rev. Franklin felt that amplifying the adan was poisonous pluralism. Franklin posited that: "You're taking that bell tower, and you're
turning it into a Muslim minaret. I think it's a slap at the
Christian faith."

“Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and
welcoming campus for all of its students. However, it was clear that what was conceived
as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect.”

It may not have just been Franklin Graham's moral suasion which won the battle for the bell tower. Franklin Graham's initial Facebook post suggested that alumni and donors ought to withhold support until the decision was reversed.

After University officials opted against amplifying the adan, Rev. Graham posted his support for Duke's decision.

"Every day from that same Duke chapel, church bells ring, and twice on
Sunday. The cross is on the emblem of Duke University. The entire quad,
and the entire campus of Duke University is laid out as a cross. And the
Christian chapel is the very symbol of Duke University. So the kind of
fanatical proclamation that Christianity is being erased from Duke’s
campus is frankly a poor indication of the intelligence of that
argument."

While it is true that Duke University was founded by Methodists and Quakers, the Blue Devil's campus has long been operating as a secular school. It is facile reasoning that the church bell rings twice on Sunday at Duke Chapel as it ignores the symbolic importance of the adan. Duke's Chapel is at the highest ridge on campus and one of the highest points in Durham County. Having the Collegiate Gothic Chapel broadcast the prayer Friday afternoon would be interpreted by radicalized religious as establishing the dominance of Islam over those academic ivory towers.

“The structure as you describe it would be as grotesque as a three-story
museum dedicated to exploring the faith of Shintoism and
emperor-worship, and its arts and culture, with a sanctuary for prayer
services and community programs, at Pearl Harbor."

We in the west seem like we are metaphobes who are incapable of appreciating the significance of symbolism or the political impact of Islam. They fail to consider that Islam is a holistic system which incorporates law, governance as well as spirituality.

Radicalized Islamists seek to impose sharia law through cultural jihad. France is grappling with a suspicion the political correctness coupled with Islamic accommodations is creating an Islamicized France. While the majority of North American Muslims seem content to live in a secular society with a pluralistic polity, it is easy to understand why some are chary about allowing accommodations which can be seen as a primus entre pares situation.

The idea of the Islamization of France is not a new one. The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) has been covering the sensitive subject for a couple of years, as is seen in their report about Generation Identity protests against '68ers (street protesters in May, 1968) who are allowing the Islamization of France.

But the Islamist jihadist Parish shootings at Charlie Hebdo as well as the Kosher grocery store highlights the cultural clash as well as homegrown terrorists who feel isolated from mainstream French values.

Soren Kern of the Gatestone Institute had a sobering chronology of the tensions created in the gradual Islamization of France.
It is estimated that 10% of the French population are Muslim (about 6.5 million of the total population of 66 million), but the government can not say with certainly since French is mandated to be secular. Nonetheless, until the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the French government have implemented politically correct accommodations their Muslim residents and citizens. The most notable of these practices are 750 "No Go Zones", which are euphemistically called "zones urbanes sensibles" where French gendarmes dare not go and sharia law reigns.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

While it is no surprise that a progressive politician such as Bill De Blasio wants to welcome those who are socially disadvantaged, like people who broke immigration laws. Some states like California, are trying to get everyone operating on the roads with a drivers license for safety concerns. Unfortunately, making the privilege of driving available to indocumentados does not mean that they will qualify. About half of the illegal immigrants taking the California DMV test failed, often more than once.
But such bleeding hearts usually just refer to the group as "undocumented Americans". De Blasio apologized if these people felt like "second class" citizens. Really? This is insulting to those who follow the rule of law like citizens, taxpayers and especially those honorable immigrants who played by the rules and endured the long and costly process to become a legal citizen of the United States.
The IDs which the undocumented New Yorkers will not only allow them to use banks and fly on airplanes. It also entitles them to use the 33 city agencies. How do such residents treat the civic largess? The track record for this class of immigrants is not promising.

If they do not necessarily have Social Security numbers, they will either use false IDs or work under the table. Perhaps President Obama's extra-legal Executive Action moots that issue before the judicial branch which makes it a political issue not to be overturned with a chary Congressional leadership.President Obama allowed a large influx of Central American immigrants to migrate to America and be disbursed on their own recognizance throughout the United States so long as they showed up for their scheduled INS hearing. The government now reports that 96% of these people were "in abstentia" (i.e. no shows).

Many suspect that some politicians encourage immigration of "undocumented Americans" as a way to increase voter turnout. In Maryland, it is estimated that 7% of the electorate may be comprised of illegal immigrants. This was determined cross checking voter rolls to jury summons which were appealed because they were not US Citizens.

As this nation tries to grapple with the thorny subject of illegal immigration, we ought to stop ignoring the rule of law by minimizing the duties along with the rights of citizens.

Americans have been reveling in low gas prices wondering if they are in a time warp. Many do not realize that petroleum prices have plunged because of American entrepreneurial ingenuity and Saudi backup strategy.

The shale oil which is being extracted due to fracking in American oil wells on private land is creating some oversupply. Saudi Arabia is not cutting production. This is not simply because others in OPEC would not respect production cuts but is part of a long term strategy.

Fracking is an effective way to get more yield out of an oil field, but it is only economical at certain prices, which are believed to be around $55 a barrel. If OPEC can keep flooding the market and keeping oil prices low, it becomes uneconomical to do more fracking ventures.

The oil industry can not start up on a dime due to infrastructure and regulatory impediments. For example, the moratorium which President Obama imposed after the BP Deepwater Horizon spill chased away jobs, as uninstalled oil rigs were sent away from the Gulf of Mexico to more productive waters. If fracking becomes unproductive for a prolonged period, the equipment may be reallocated to other sectors. If not, an overreaching EPA and lawfare can slow down a renewal of fracking.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Stephane Charbonnier, Chief Editor of the French satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo", was one of France's leading cartoonists who created under the pen name "Charb". Charbonnier was also an outspoken advocate for free speech who fiercely defended his right to push material that others, particularly Muslims, deemed offensive.

In 2011, Charbonnier invited the Prophet Muhammad to be a guest editor to Charlie Hebdo. This prompted a firebombing which destroyed Charlie Hebdo's offices and put Charb on an Al-Qaeda hit list.

The three Islamic terrorists who brutally attacked Charlie Hebdo's offices on January 7, 2015 reportedly asked for Charb by name as they slaughtered twelve people.

Some Muslim spokesmen justify a rabid response like the terrorist attack as Charlie Hebdo published pieces which were offensive to the Prophet Muhammad. Bill Donahue, President of the (American) Catholic League, condemned the killings but stated that "Muslims have a right to be angry" over Charlie Hebdo's provocative publications.

Many media outlets are quick to point out that Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical publication, which is true but is misleading. This Charlie Hebdo massacre was an attack on Free Speech. It was cultural jihad which is imposing tenants of sharia law (among which is to not to offend Muslims) on Western society. This movement is being aided and accelerated by Political Correctness, which seeks to not provoke favored minorities but is happy to taunt traditional mores.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

The Mainstream Media loves to trumpet the trope that they are Guardians of First Amendment rights for Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. However, the timorous self-censoring displayed by major media outlets in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in Paris exposes this ideal as an intellectual chimera.

CNN Senior Editorial Director Richard Griffin issued an internal memo which dictated that the media outlet not show images that could be considered offensive to Muslims. The Politico released Griffin's email:

Although we are not at this time showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons
of the Prophet considered offensive by many Muslims, platforms are
encouraged to verbally describe the cartoons in detail. This is key to
understanding the nature of the attack on the magazine and the tension
between free expression and respect for religion.

Video or stills of street protests showing Parisians holding up
copies of the offensive cartoons, if shot wide, are also OK. Avoid
close-ups of the cartoons that make them clearly legible.

It's also OK to show most of the protest cartoons making the rounds
online, though care should be taken to avoid examples that include
within them detailed depictions of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

NBC News mimicked this tact by guiding their outlets to neither show headlines nor cartoons which could be deemed insensitive or offensive.

In the print medium, the Associated Press applied an internal policy of "not moving deliberately provocative images" so it removed Charlie Hebdo images from their database. However, it only took the Associate Press 27 years and an embarrassing exposure by the Washington Examiner for the same standard to be applied to Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" (1987). Was this because a crucifix dipped in urine and displayed as art is not deliberately provocative? Do elitist editors think that anti-Christian imagery is not provocative but that they dare not offend adherents to the Prophet Mohammad? Or does publishing some provocative pictures might put their lives on the line by radical terrorists?

The New York Daily News covered the source material which provoked these three Islamic terrorists to assassinate twelve French citizens by pixillating the Prophet Mohammad's image.

As Mark Steyn remarked, the New York Daily News put Mohammad in the witness protection program with their editorial sensitivity, yet the editors did not obscure the hook nose caricature of a Jew which shared the frame. So much for sensitivity or avoiding provocative pictures.

It is galling that the media outlets are proud as a peacock as being protectors of Free Speech while acting in a duplicitous and cowardly manner. While these Charlie Hedbo pictures are provocative, they are no longer a polemic point of view but now are a news story. None the less, the major media acts in a Milquetoast manner towards the prophet Mohammad. No wonder why they can derisively known as the "Lamestream Media".

These pusillanimous journalists should review what dhimmitude means. This second class citizenship of non-Muslims acknowledges the dominance of sharia law and does not allow anything to offend those within the Dar-Islam. Self-censorship so as not to give offense to Muslims is a major step in accepting those social shackles.

In Paris, many protesters to the Charlie Hebdo atrocity carried pencils to symbolize that the pencil is mightier than the sword and that they are not afraid. The cartoon of the Twin Tower of Pencils links terrorism from America's 9/11 attack to the Parisian terrorism. Sadly this cartoon has another connection. American news networks stopped showing the terrorist planes hitting the World Trade Center except briefly during the 9/11 anniversary to supposedly not to show provocative images. Of course, such horrific footage might remind people about the consequences of unchecked terrorism.

As President of the Senate, Vice President Joe Biden has the duty to administer the oath of office to members at the start of a session (even though the Senate maintains that it is a continuous body). Members take the official oath in groups of ten on the Senate floor, but as part of the pomp and ceremony of the 114th Congress, Senators and their families make ceremonial poses in the Old Senate Chambers in the Capitol.

Vice President Biden's Id appeared unleashed as he was administering this ceremonial duty. When 80 year old Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) stepped to the dais to take the oath with his teenaged granddaughter Emily, the Vice President complimented the pretty teen by quipping: "I hope you have a big fence around the house!".

Mr. Biden was so pleased with his presumed piropo that he repeated the "big fence" line with freshman Senator Joni Ernst's (R-IA) daughter Libby. This was not the end of Biden's smooth moves with the Ernsts. He addressed his colleague as Gail (her husband's name) instead of Joni. Furthermore, the Vice President then put his arm around Libby as the oath was administered.

These creepy comments and awkward encounters were not reserved exclusively for GOP families. Vice President Biden said to four term Senator Dick Durban's (D-IL) grandson: "You've got killer eyes. The girls are in trouble.".

When first term Senator Chris Coons (R-DE) was posing for his 114th Congress oath, Vice President Biden tried to kiss Coon's daughter Margaret on the head, but she turned away.

These avuncular blurtations and clumsy socialization might have been tolerated at a family gathering with an odd old uncle, but this was a public ceremony. Moreover, the special attention which Mr. Biden gave lovely young women was uncomfortable, if not creepy.

Remember, Mr. Biden is one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. In addition, the Vice President is positioned to make a run for the White House on his own in 2016. This gives the "big fence around the house" quip even more poignancy.

UPDATE 01/11/2015 While responding to a Chris Wallace's question on Fox News Sunday, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) insists that his daughter does not think that Vice President Biden is creepy. In fact, Coons claims that Biden was just trying to help Maggie get through a day in the spotlight. Oh, by putting the spotlight on a teen by whispering sweet nothings in her ear and seeking to give her a peck on the forehead. Sure.